What's The Problem?

In her first year Bivens learned what a weak position the LPGA is really in. The man behind the McDonald's LPGA Championship, Herb Lotman, moved the tournament coverage from CBS to the Golf Channel without any approval from the LPGA because none was needed. The players, the senior LPGA staff and Bivens herself would have much preferred to see the tournament on a network, with its vastly bigger audience. Jonathon Miller, the exeutive vice president of NBC Sports, never even got a chance to bid for the rights, to his frustration. Bivens knows there's one way to make sure that doesn't happen again: You have to own your tournaments.

Any day now she expects to make an announcement about the 2007 season-ending ADT Championship, played at the Trump International Golf Club by day and Mar-a-Lago by night. In 2007 the tournament will have the same name, the same venue and the same format, but it will be owned, 100%, by the Ladies Professional Golf Association. "It took some horse trading, but we did it," the commissioner said.

It's one event among three dozen. To Bivens, it's a start.

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